I thought breastfeeding was going to be easy. To be honest I didn’t give it much thought . To be really honest it never even crossed my mind.

Then my daughter arrived. Hungry.

Ok no problem. Here you go. And c’mon. Good cry, mouth is open. Perfect. Here it comes… No?

I was instantly a failure.

Congratulations.. It was day 1.

How was she going to eat?

I wish someone told me when I was taking my hypno birthing class that there’s no breathing exercise to induce a nice “latch.”

I wish when I was stressing out over which wall decal to choose for the nursery, someone would have mentioned I needed to figure out how my boob was going to transfer milk into my child’s body. Cause you can’t squirt it in.

I wish someone told me I would forever be obsessing over how much she ate and how much milk I was producing.

Oh and by they way, your body won’t produce a single drop of milk for a couple days after delivery. Don’t freak out, you’ll make little dribbles of colostrum that are more than enough nourishment for your newborn.

I wish someone warned me how vulnerable I would feel needing my husband to help latch and unlatch as I breathed through the tears.

I wish someone told me that I would look back on that initial pain and smile.

That it would be the first thing we would figure out together.

Just because you have a set of breasts, it doesn’t mean you will know how to use them to feed your baby. It’s ok to ask for help.

Its OK to feel a little (lot) lost. To not be good at this. You’re not alone. You are learning. In real time. No practice rounds. So please be kind to yourself. And if you know a mama out there that needs to hear this, maybe pass this along.

I guess I wish someone would have written an article like this for me back then.